Killer K1: A Cheaper Gaming NIC

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Because the Killer NIC and K1 have new Vista drivers (for 32-bit Vista, anyway), we decided to run our tests on our Vista test machine. According to the Bigfoot Network people, the benefits of their card should be even more apparent under Vista, as Vista’s reworked networking stack is even more heavily optimized toward performance in big file transfers and not at low-latency, small-but-rapid transfers common to games.

Component

Killer NIC test system

Processor

Athlon 64 FX-60

Motherboard and chipset

ASUS A8R32 MVP Deluxe

Graphics

GeForce 8800 GTS (101.41 drivers)

Memory

2 x 1GB DDR2 800 (5-5-5-12)

Hard drive

Western Digital 160GB SATA Drive

Optical drive

ATAPI DVD-RW Drive

Audio

Sound Blaster Audigy 2

Operating system

Windows Vista Ultimate, 32-bit

How do you test a network card that promises to improve performance in online games? The internet virtually guarantees a high level of unpredictability—the bane of empirical testing methodology. There’s never a guarantee that if you do something one way the first time, it will happen again the same way the next. Even if you manage to perform the exact same actions each time you test (a near impossibility), you can be sure that the other players in the game won’t. Frankly, you can’t test something on the internet and expect true consistency.

So we did the best we could to reduce this variability. In each network game we tested, we played the games as we normally would on a high-end system like this. We had the details cranked up, and played at high resolutions (typically 1920×1200 widescreen, if supported). We left antialiasing and anisotropic filtering disabled.

Each game was played for a 5-minute “run”, and the ping time was recorded from the game’s own internal ping value each minute. These five ping recordings were then averaged to obtain an “average ping” for that run. We recorded the frame rate over this 5 minute stretch with FRAPS to get an average frame rate. Then, we did it again, and again. Each game was played for four consecutive 5-minute runs to help minimize the variability inherent in playing on the internet. We did this with each game first using the ASUS integrated NIC, and then immediately after using the Killer K1, so that we were playing on each server with just minutes separating our tests of one NIC versus the other. This way, we always played on the same server at the same time of day, usually against the same exact group of people.

None of the in-game options were changed from one test to the next. In other words, the only things that changed were the addition and use of the Killer NIC card and the actual moment-to-moment gameplay itself (which is impossible to duplicate). We focused on playing in large servers filled nearly to capacity with players.

So for each game, we’ll present the following data:

1. The average ping time for each of the four runs, obtained by five samples of the game’s internal ping measurement.

2. The average frame rate for each 5-minute run.

3. The game-wide average ping and frame rate, averaging together each of the four runs. This is the most important measurement, and the one with the least variability.

Let’s see how the Killer K1 performs in a variety of online games and whether the new card with new drivers running in Windows Vista can outperform the previous Killer NIC. Continued…